St. Louis #1 in list of places where you’re most likely to get assaulted

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St. Louis #1 in list of places where you’re most likely to get assaulted

A person’s entire life can change instantly when they become the victim of a violent attack. Beyond the immediate physical injuries, aggravated assaults have been shown to negatively impact a victim’s mental health and functioning in relationships, education and occupation. One study found that a single incident of aggravated assault can, on average, cost the victim and the criminal justice over $145,000. While no area is safe from the devastating effects of violent assaults, some areas have significantly higher incident rates than others.

In order to create a comprehensive nationwide view, FindTheHome looked at the 2014 FBI Uniform Crime Report (latest complete data), visualized the data and identified the counties with the highest aggravated assault rates. The FBI’s UCR defines aggravated assault as “an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury.” This definition does not include simple assaults, which are assaults without the use of a dangerous weapon or where the victim does not sustain serious injuries. Sexual assaults are also not classified under this category, as the FBI defines them as sex offenses.

The aggravated assault rate is the total number of aggravated assaults reported to law enforcement agencies within a county per 100,000 people. While the numbers on each slide are county-wide figures, we also provide the name of a major city within the county for context. Population estimates for this calculation come from the 2014 American Community Survey. Only counties in the 50th percentile for population in their state were considered in this analysis.

Disclaimer: The data published here is meant solely to illustrate the relative rates of aggravated assault, and not to make assertions about the effectiveness of law enforcement. There are many factors that affect the rate and nature of crime — such as the degree of urbanization, composition of age groups, economic climate and modes of transportation within an area — which are not considered here.